Browsing Category: "English Language Basics"
Most often while writing, some people are confused when it comes to capital letters; which word should start with a capital letter and under what circumstances?! This is because Capital Letter usage is mostly done by intuition by most of us; do you know exactly when to use capital letters? If yes, I invite you to see if you got it right - if no, you have come to the right place, continue your reading below.
When To Use Capital Letters?
1) Beginning of a sentence
This is the very basic and classical usage of capital letters in the english language and any language since old times.
2) When using proper nouns
E.g:
Wakish, Duffy, London, Manchester, November Jupiter, etc.
3) For adjectives formed from proper nouns
E.g:
Elizabethan poets, Scotch whisky, the French language
4) When using ’special proper nouns’
Please note that ‘special nouns‘ is not an official word class, but it is just how I’m personally tagging the following:
E.g:
God, Christ, Bible, Trinity, etc.
5) For a pronoun or possessive adjective applying to ‘God’
E.g:
“They trusted in God that He would save His people”
6) For the first person singular, I
But this does NOT apply for ‘me, my, etc..’
7) For personification (often used in poetry)
E.g:
- If Winter comes, can spring be far behind? (Shelley)
8.) For the chief words in title of people, books, plays, etc.
E.g:
Elizabeth the Second, Alfred the Great, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Tale of Two Cities
9) For salutations or forms of addressing (often in letters)
E.g:
Dr, Mr, Mrs, Miss, etc.
10) In letters, for the greeting and complimentary close
E.g:
Dear Sir,…
Yours faithfully,…
11) When using abbreviations of degrees, titles, etc..
E.g:
B.Sc ==> Bachelor of Science
Q.C ==> Queen’s Counsel
M.P ==> Member of Parliament
12) For the opening words of direct speech
E.g:
“Blogging is my passion as well as my job”, said Darren Rowse
But the capital letter should not be repeated in the second part of a broken quotation:
“I am working hard now,” he said, “in order to provide for my old age.”
13) For the first word in each line of poetry
E.g:
First liner..
Second liner..
Third liner..
But this convention, as far as I remember, is however being disregarded by modern poets. (New generation, new styles)
Have I missed Any Other Uses Of Capital Letters?
If you think so, please do use the comment form below to add to this list, thanks.
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Certain words tend to create confusions in the way they are written. Why is this? I have tried to think about it and I came with the reasons below.
Why Are Words Mis-Spelt?
1) Knowing more than one language == writing confusion
Words are written in different forms in different languages; for instance, for a person (like me) who makes frequent usage of french and english in my daily life, I tend to get confuse when writing some words. Let’s take the example of the word ‘enemy‘.
In english it is written as ‘enemy‘ and in french it is written as ‘ennemi‘ - so I used to write it as ‘ennemy‘.
Possible Solution:
From my experience, I had made a list of words which I tend to write wrongly and I tried to memorise them and at times doing the homework of writing them several times. This method proved to have been useful to me. (May be you have another solution? If so, please use the comment form below to let me know..)
2) Some people simply do not put enough effort in learning to write well.
What about people who know only one language? I have relatives living across different parts of the globe. When I see my cousins from France or England or U.S write, I see they do make mistakes (at times too silly a mistake) despite the fact that their written language is their mother tongue. Then why those mistakes?! The simple answer to this is: ‘These people are careless with the language, they are not enough attentive and not putting enough effort to learn their language. (Read Why Writing?)
3) Some words are written differently from their pronounciation.
4) Stop writing == emergence of poor writing
There is a fourth point which I have figured out. When a person is very good at a language but has not been writing for a long period of time, he/she still gets affected (I have experienced this myself). As goes the saying: “practice makes perfect” - You have to constantly keep in touch with writing too. (And this is one of the reasons why I blog 
)
List Of Words Commonly Mis-Spelt
Commonly Mis-Spelt Words
| Incorrect Forms | Correct Form |
|---|---|
| centuri, centuary | century |
| origion, origine | origin |
| ennemy, enmy | enemy |
| ommission | omission |
| interuption, intruption | interruption |
| comparitive | comparative |
| accomodate, accomadate | accommodate |
| priviledge | privilege |
| tragidy, tradedgy | tragedy |
| paralell | parallel |
| annihillate | annihilate |
| tarrif, tarif | tarriff |
| exagerate, ecegerate | exaggerate |
| embarassed | embarrassed |
| develope | develop |
| futur | future |
| amunition | ammunition |
| fultill, fullfil | fulfil |
| reversable | reversible |
| humourous, humurous | humorous |
| preceeding, precceding | preceding |
| agreable | agreeable |
| disapoint | disappoint |
| harrassed, harased | harassed |
| occured | occurred |
| writting | writing |
| writen | written |
| seperate | separate |
| caotic | chaotic |
| cahos | chaos |
| undoubtably | undoubtedly |
| definitly, definately | definitely |
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Last time during the explanation on “What is a punctuation“, I mentioned that the uses of commas will be elaborated in a later session and this is exactly what this article is focussed on; so fasten your sealt belts.
What Is A Comma?
→ A comma is a sign or punctuation mark which denotes the shortest pause and the least amount of separation between words, phrases or clauses.
Importance Of Commas
→ The comma is the most frequently used punctuation mark and has an array of uses.
Is this a coincidence, is this a chance?
Of course not! As I previously told you, a punctuation mark helps to translate or convey the exact voice inflexion from spoken to written words. And when anyone talks, there’s always a series of short pauses. Now by definition, a comma marks a short pause.
Now be careful to not overuse commas, that is, do not use too much of it in your sentence. Why? It will spoil the meaning of your sentence and making it confusing for your readers. A sentence with many unecessary commas often leads to several interpretation.
When To Use Commas?
Your common sense and the desire to make your meaning clear, will usually guide you where a pause is needed. Just try to say aloud what you want to write and see for yourself where you make obvious pauses. Everything comes with practice and maturity of your writing skills.
General Uses Of Commas - When Are Commas USed?
1) To separate words in a list or series
E.g:
→ Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Fernando Torres were the top three players nominated for the FIFA world player of the year.
2) To mark off direct speech
E.g:
→ Aliya said, “He’s the handsome I was telling you about the other day.”
3) To mark off or separate expressions like: “however, infact, of course, therefore, after all, indeed, for instance“, from the rest of a sentence
E.g:
→ Indeed, Manchester United won the prestigious title of the world best football club.
→ It was, however, too expensive for our budget.
4) To show Ellipsis
E.g:
→ You may go your way; I, mine.
→ He will soon succeed; you, never.
5) To mark off question tags.
E.g:
→ The new year’s eve was great, isn’t it?
6) To separate short co-ordinate clauses
E.g:
→ Please run upstairs, go to my room, get me my bag.
→ I came, I saw, I conquered.
→ When it rained, we got wet.
7) To mark off nouns in apposition
E.g:
→ Problogger, Darren Rowse, is very much loved and solicited in the blogosphere.
8.) To separate clauses in a compound sentence.
E.g:
→ Mickels Rea was very busy with his first official album, so he did not come to the last Star Academy get-together party.
Pitfalls:
In Complex Sentences, the comma should not be used when the omission of the Relative Clause would make the Principal Clause meaningless or would change its meanings. (Explanation of the red words in a later session)
E.g:
Consider the following sentence:
→ “Shakespeare plays which were written in the years 1604-1609 are all tragic and sombre.”
⇒ Now, if commas marked off the clause as follows:
“Shakespeare plays, which were written in the years 1604-1609, are all tragic and sombre.”
This would completely change the whole meaning of the sentence and would thus convey the main meaning of: “Shakespeare plays are all tragic and sombre.”
Is this what the original sentence wanted to say? No, the original meant that only those written in the years 1604-1609 were tragic.
Got it? So, be careful when using commas.
Last Words..
There are other different ways in which commas are used, but I have brought forward only the most common and important ones. Commas can be used as per your intuition since different people and writers essentially have varied styles - but provided you convey the right meaning without ambiguities. In any case, I would to love to hear your comments below..
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Essay Words With Meaning And Sentences To help You
1) Scalded => burnt by hot liquid or steam
Jirel took the scalded girl to hospital.
2) Spooky => scary
The old house was huge, dusty and spooky.
3) hundle huddle => crowd together
The girls huddled together in fear.
4) shabbily => poorly dressed with worn-out clothes
The old man, lying at the post office, was shabbily dressed.
5) advent => arrival
The advent of the iPhone 3G has created a big craze among youngsters and adults alike.
6) loathe => dislike greatly
Some travellers actually like them while others loathe them.
7) nutritious => high food value
Above all, the daily food you eat may not be nutritious.
8.) dismay => shame consternation
We starred at the teacher in great dismay.
Read Previous Editions:
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Verbs and prepositions have always been linked together in the construction of a simple sentence. I hence call them this way: verbs and prepositions are the husband and wife, for there cannot be a shining house without a couple. (That’s my own quote 
). Each verb has only a set or one compatible preposition(s); ideally each verb is associated with a preposition, but there are also some cases where a verb might dwell with more than one preposition.
This is the first edition that I brought forward in this series of “Phrases With Prepositions” and I will start with the alphabet A and upto Z. But trust me this is a whole lot of them and yet they are very crucial in helping you write better and confidently. I will show you what verb goes with what preposition(s) and also forming a sentence or phrase with them. It should definitely be a good collection in your database of “Learn Good Writing Skills by starting with the Basics of the English Language“. So here we go…
5 Verbs And Prepositions With A Sentence
1) Abondon to
Having no other choice, the King abandoned his ministers to the fury of the of the mob.
2) Abide by
As a honest student, you should always abide by the rules and regulations of your institution.
3) Able to
Having gone bankrupt, the manager is not able to pay his employees right now.
NOTE:
Ideally, we do not say “is not able to”, instead we say “is unable to” - This is much better english. But for the sake of the subject of this article, I have used “is not able”
4) Absorb in
Tom Sawyer was so absorbed in his day dreams that he completely forgot about Mr Dobbins’ class.
5) Abhorrence of (abhorrence means ’strong dislike’ or ‘disgust’)
Most sentient women have an abhorrence of lizards
That’s it for this edition. I have tried to make the sentences simple so that you can concentrate more on how the marriage of certain verb with its specific preposition goes. For example, we cannot say “able for“, that’s not good english (just like an eagle is not an appropriate pair for a hen - Got it?!). Hopefully, as you keep on reading editions after editions, you will surely get a better grasp of things. So don’t forget to subscribe freely and come back often. And please do use the comment form to give me your feedback and other possible sentences or associations. Share This Article with your friends if you appreciate my effort to write it!
